Last week we got snow in Seattle!
It started snowing on Monday, and I was so delighted. I just love snow, I always have. My mom has reminded me of the strange childhood behavior I had - whenever it snowed, I'd go out to our backyard and just lie there, staring at the snow...in a t-shirt. And it's true. Well, I can't account for the t-shirt part, but I do remember lying there, thinking that maybe if I stared long enough, I'd be able to discern the individual crystal snowflakes. I was always searching for proof that every snowflake is in fact, as unique as we were taught in school; always wondering if they really looked like the paper snow flakes we cut out of coffee filters in art class.
There's just something about snow. Like when you walk through woods (on a snowy evening, with Robert Frost) and it muffles everything so completely you can hear individual snowflakes landing. How when the sun is shining it somehow sparkles yellow and blue, and at the same time remains blindingly white.
It makes sense, that old myth about the Eskimos (who I believe are actually the Yup'ik and Inuit peoples) having hundreds of words for snow - it can be wet, dry, powdery...Hm, they have a lot more experience with snow than I do, so of course they have more words. But I am reminded of how every snow day, the question of whether it will be the right kind of snow to build a snowman just added to the anticipation.
I grew up in Virginia, and my father always scoffed at how people in my town didn't know how to drive in snow.
Well, compared to Seattle, Virginia is doing great in the preparedness-for-snow department.
We got about two inches. The city shut down. On Monday the main bus out of my neighborhood just wasn't running. Period. On Tuesday the roads hadn't been plowed, or sanded, or salted. The result of all this was that it felt like a lot more snow than there really was, because it was so inhibitory. For me, that was great. I don't have a car, I didn't need to be anywhere. So I got to enjoy it. But I was amused. People say that it snows so infrequently in Seattle that it is just not worth it to invest in snow equipment. I wonder if this will change with climate change. What I remember from school is that climate change predictions for this area call for less snowpack in the mountains - I'm not sure if that would also translate to less snow here (the snowpack on the mountains has more to do with precipitation patterns than temperature).
4 comments:
Lol, I am always amused by places that shut down with such small amounts of snow. Glad you were able to enjoy it, though. :) We got some snow on Friday and Saturday, but not much, and it melted quickly. Toronto, obviously, is well prepared for snow, so hopefully it shouldn't be too much of an issue when we start getting more of it. I do appreciate the fact that my car gets parked in a garage, because that will at least eliminate the annoyance of having to dig my car out or clear it off in the mornings. Apparently my school district doesn't get many snow days, either, so boo to that. :p
Ooooh garage parking in a wintery area is VERY nice :)
haha, yeah more snow = less snow days. I have a friend from alaska who goes to school here in Seattle, and last week was here first time experiencing snow days. hehe.
Hi Tala! I didn't realize you had an active blog; I'll have to stalk you since you're stalking me and my puppy!
It's so funny here with snow-- everyone drives just fine in the snow, but if it rains, everyone freaks out! Seriously, if it's snowing, people just slow down a bit and drive more carefully; if it's raining, everyone goes 20 mph and puts on their flashers. So weird.
Hi Carrie! Yay for stalking :P Sometimes this blog is more active than other times. But yeah, yay :)(That's super funny about the rain, btw)
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